ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author points out a critique of the ideological paradigm of humor, dealing with the introduction of a non-binary system of classifications, his four-factor model of humor. Statements linking comedy with a liberal, and particularly a subversive, mindset are legion. David Banatar pointed out that “it is because of humour’s subversive power that many a despot has sought to prohibit humor that mocks him or his associates”. Gilbert Leung maintains that “Laughter can be seen as an irruptive displacement of being and creative sovereign moment that poses a challenge to any matrix of laws, mores, traditions, values, identifications, that may persist in unresponsive fixity”. In the words of Ingvild Gilhus, “laughter explores the world’s dividing lines”. Humor thrives in the borderlands of taste, civility, piety, and decorum, hence the persistent tendency of jokes to address risqué, obscene, blasphemous, and taboo matters.
